A bigger German say—but fewer guns?

RUDOLF SCHARPING, the German defence minister, must sometimes regret that he did not, after all, snap up the job of NATO secretary-general in Brussels that was briefly dangled before him this summer. On September 11th, for instance, when he was roundly booed in Berlin by some 5,000 soldiers livid that he had not resisted new budget cuts more sturdily.

The booers have a point. Mr Scharping took over defence barely a year ago on one condition: that funds would not be slashed at least until a committee pondering a new armed-forces structure had finished its work, probably in 2000. Done, said the chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. Done, said Germany's then finance minister, Oskar Lafontaine.

Now, though, the fiercely thrifty new finance man, Hans Eichel, is in place and demands cuts from everyone. Mr Scharping's share, despite tussles with Mr Eichel and appeals to Mr Schröder, will be DM3.5 billion ($1.9 billion), leaving defence with a total DM45.3 billion.

Feasible? Just about. Some 8,000 fewer conscripts than planned will be called up next year; some facilities will close, ending certain civilian jobs; the army will start charging for services like flood relief and emergency transport that it used to offer free. “The pain threshold has been reached,” groans Mr Scharping.

But there is worse to come. Mr Eichel plans defence cuts of more than DM18 billlion in the next four years, although most military pundits reckon a good DM20 billion above and beyond current spending will be needed over the next decade to modernise equipment and ensure Germany can pay its way in international projects like the Eurofighter. Mr Scharping even claims that, apart from the Leopard-2 tank and the Tornado aircraft, all the armed forces' major weapons systems are too old and too expensive to keep going.

Familiar-sounding stuff, admittedly, from defence ministers and generals alike. And few people, certainly not Mr Scharping, deny that, with debt-servicing now the second biggest item in the federal budget, the state badly needs to chop its spending. Mr Eichel reckons that if he lets any minister off the hook, however justified the argument, his whole savings package will unravel. Mr Schröder backs him.

But Germany also has to reshape its armed forces, still too heavily weighted to meet a threat from the east which, at least in the old form, no longer exists. Can it, for instance, maintain conscription, long thought essential to help keep the army from becoming a “state within the state”? Does it make sense to slash spending before the committee at work has come up with answers? A year ago, at least, the government thought not.

Moreover, Mr Schröder stresses Germany's right to a bigger say in the alliance thanks to the part it played in the war over Kosovo. The foreign ministry speaks of the need for more effort to build a common European security policy. Yet Germany's spending on defence has dropped to 1.5% of GDP, much less than Britain's or France's, and if Mr Eichel has his way it will go on falling. How does all that square? It does not. Maybe Mr Scharping should have bolted for Brussels after all.